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5 reasons why Chinese manufacturers need inbound marketing

Increased competition. Rising manufacturing costs. Lower margins.

If your head started to spin after you read the first 7 words of this article, you, like thousands of other OEMs, are facedwith the dilemma of how to go about dealing with the above in the best possible manner whilst maintaining a highstandard of quality products that are the very pillars of your business.

Unfortunately, Chinese manufacturers are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with these issues and the traditionalmeans of doing business, particularly how you market your product, is just not cutting it anymore.

The reality is that you need to be focussing your marketing efforts online!

In the information age, 71-89% of website visitors start their information research online. They search for answers toquestions in their industry, for comparisons of similar products or simply for solutions to problems that they mighthave.

You need to be differentiating yourself from the thousands of others out there and positioning your products online insuch a way that they can be found easily, that they become the solution to consumers' problems! And the solution toyour problems may very well be inbound marketing!

Wikipedia refers to Inbound marketing as marketing activities that bring visitors in, rather than marketers having to goout to get prospects' attention. Inbound marketing earns the attention of customers, makes the company easy to befound, and draws customers to the website by producing interesting content.

It makes use of various online marketing channels and practices such as SEO, business blogging, social mediamarketing and marketing automation that systematically draws in and nurtures sales leads until they are ready to buy!

Below I'm going to lay out 5 reasons why Chinese manufacturers absolutely need to be using inbound marketingtechniques to get ahead of their competitors:

5 reasons why Chinese manufacturers need inbound marketing:

1) Inbound marketing provides manufacturers with the perfect platform for building a brand for theirproducts!

This is one of the biggest things that helps differentiate you from your competitors because it gives your products theglobal appeal that you have been searching for. It makes you more identifiable, helps your products becomesynonymous with high quality and adds even more value to your business as people relate better to a brand than amere product!

Need help building a brand? Learn more in our blog here.

2) Inbound marketing gets you found online

By implementing simple SEO techniques and making use of keyword research tools you are able to rank for keywordsthat your ideal customer is searching for when they look for your products. This gives you so much more opportunityto be found and ensures that you are on the top of the search results pages for your specific product.

3) Inbound marketing helps showcase your products to a wider audience

The importance of social media can not be underestimated as there are more than 2 billion people actively usingsocial media today! By setting up social media accounts on some of the biggest Western networks in use today, yourproducts have an infinitely greater chance of being seen and purchased as well as providing you with a platform toengage with your fans and increase brand awareness!

4) Inbound marketing is pull marketing, as opposed to push marketing

The traditional means of marketing (pushing your potential clients to make a purchase ) is well on the way out!Inbound marketing helps to provide consumers with meaningful, educational content that informs their purchasingdecisions. By frequently posting relevant content like blogs that position your products as solutions to your readers'problems you become a trusted source that has consumers coming to you! This pull marketing is less intrusiveand means that you will receive higher quality leads when they are buy ready, with the sale basically making itself!

5) Inbound marketing is cheaper than traditional marketing techniques

According to Hubspot, inbound marketing sales leads cost 62% less than leads garnered from traditional outboundmarketing techniques. Using inbound marketing techniques means that you don't have to break your bank in searchof more sales leads. This ultimately leaves you with more marketing spend to help you open even more markets foryour products and take your business to another level!

These are just some of the great benefits that inbound marketing stands to provide manufacturers with! Learn evenmore about how inbound can impact your business and increase sales by clicking below for your FREE website,brand and marketing assessment!

Posted by Dewet Boshoff on Mon 23 Mar, 2015

Dewet is originally from South Africa and has been living in Asia for almost 10 years. He found his calling in China,becoming a fluent Mandarin speaker whilst studying Business & Chinese at Shenzhen University, and was amongthe first cohort of foreign students to graduate with honours there. He is an inbound marketing scholar and socialmedia enthusiast. Dewet delights in using his language skills to promote inbound in China and to educate the West onChinese social media. When Dewet isn't on the job he enjoys outdoor activities, traveling to exotic locations andsocialising with his friends-online and in the real world!

Topics: Inbound Marketing • chinese manufacturers